The story of the mother-and-daughter goddesses Demeter and Persephone has seized the imagination of people in every age, from ancient times to the present. Considered today by many to be the archetypal myth for women, it touches on timeless themes in every life, such as the male-female relationship, love between women, initiations into puberty and old age, the mother-daughter bond, death, and ecological renewal. Christine Downing has combined essays, prose, poetry, and even performance art with her own insightful commentary to shed new light on the myth's ancient meanings and to offer new insights in its implications for contemporary men and women.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I place this one at the top of my Demeter and Persephone Collection!!!!!,
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This review is from: Long Journey Home: Revisioning the Myth of Demeter and Persephone for Our Time (Paperback)
I am so suprised to notice that no one had given this wonderful book a review if for no other reason than to help prospective buyers know what a gem it is. Being a Persephone woman born of a Persephone-turned-Demeter mother, I have been studying this story for many years and definitely consider it one of my root myths (along with the Myth of Io and the Descent of Inanna). Still I was very pleased by the various versions of the myth given from the context of different psychological perspectives. There is an entire range of Demeter-Mothering which the myth itself doesn't develop but rather gives a basic generic framework in which each woman must fit her own personal experience. It was nice to have suggestions as to how this fitting might work. Moving from the generic to the specific can make an enormous difference as to whether or not one is even able to recognize that a myth is personally relevant. For example, not all of us had mothers who were recognizable (from reading the myth) as being Demeter-mothers due to their own deep wounding and consequent inability to mother. Some Persphone-daughters, for instance, might find it hard to imagine their mothers noticing, much less mourning their sudden disappearance. See particulary the essay entitled "Cycles of Becoming" by Vera Bushe,introduced on page 164 and starting on page 173 (paperback edition). This is just one example of the range of varia-tion that can be found in this grand mother-daughter myth. Even within the context of the same myth, it's a longer journey home for some of us than for others.
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Inside This Book
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New York, Beacon Press, Great Mother, Carl Kerenyi, San Francisco, Princeton University Press, Esther Harding, Jane Ellen Harrison, Father Zeus, Carol Christ, Charlene Spretnak, Phyllis Chesler, Gunther Zuntz, Charles Boer, Woman's Mysteries, Alice Miller, Catherine Keller, Adrienne Rich, The Complete Greek Tragedies, Walter Burkert, Study of Greek Religion, Helen Luke, Polly Young-Eisendrath, Mary Daly Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
new meaning system Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Beacon Press, Great Mother, Carl Kerenyi, San Francisco, Princeton University Press, Esther Harding, Jane Ellen Harrison, Father Zeus, Carol Christ, Charlene Spretnak, Phyllis Chesler, Gunther Zuntz, Charles Boer, Woman's Mysteries, Alice Miller, Catherine Keller, Adrienne Rich, The Complete Greek Tragedies, Walter Burkert, Study of Greek Religion, Helen Luke, Polly Young-Eisendrath, Mary Daly Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
5
books
cite this book:
- Writing With An Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors by Edvige Giunta in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Embracing the Goddess Within: A Creative Guide for Women by Kris Waldherr on page 29, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- August Wilson and Black Aesthetics by Dana Williams on page 46, and page 47
- Gender and the Interpretation of Classical Myth (Classical Inter/Faces) by Lillian E. Doherty on page 32, and Back Matter
- Secrets and Mysteries: The Glory and Pleasure of Being a Woman by Denise Linn in Back Matter
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